THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



249 



amount of pollen into the sections. 

 The point of least objection in the 

 above particulars is at nine and one- 

 eighth inches of depth. 



We do not expect ever to see a 

 standard frame adopted in this coun- 

 try. There are too many minds to 

 suit ; too many radically different 

 modes of applying supers requiring 

 specially constructed frames ever to 

 think of it. If all beekeepers pro- 

 duced extracted honey, in which 

 production one form and size of 

 frame is no better than another, we 

 should then have hopes ; but so long 

 as some of our leading apiarists pre- 

 fer for comb honey side-storing hives, 

 some top-storing and some both side 

 and top-storing, we shall never agree 

 upon a standard frame. Were I to 

 go back to side- and top-storing hives, 

 I should go back to the Gallup frame 

 or the American, but with an exclu- 

 sive top-storing hive, which we have 

 fixed upon, we are somewhat pro- 

 nounced in our preference for a shal- 

 low frame. 



New Philadelphia, O., 

 Oct 13, 1 88s. 



INVERTIBLE HIVES. 



Bt J. M. Shuck. 



When the verdict of this year has 

 been written it will be largely in favor 

 of the invertible principle in the 

 manipulation of bees and thin combs. 

 Those who are now in favor of re- 

 versing the brood combs of the hive 

 are simply pioneering the way for 

 greater results than the average bee- 

 keeper has deemed possible. 



Some one has remarked, with 

 considerable pertness, "that he did 

 not want his brood combs reversed 

 unless they were already wrong side 

 up." The inference here is plain that 

 his frames are always right side up. 

 Such may not be the case. 



Apiarists are generally agreed that 

 good management requires the brood 

 frames to be full of brood, in all 

 stages when white clover or the main 

 crop of the season is to be gathered. 

 A colony that is thus able to nurture 

 its thousands, has force adequate to 

 the harvest, and as the brood combs 

 are already full, the surplus case, for 

 either comb or extracted honey, is 

 the only place in which to put it. 

 No close working apiarist wants two 

 or three inches of honey in the tops 

 of his brood combs at this season. 

 The tops of combs thus used are 

 usually store combs, and are only 

 halting places on the way to the store- 

 room of the hive. When they are in 

 this condition near the beginning of 

 the honey harvest they are "wrong 

 side up" no matter whose they are 

 nor in what hive they are. Invert 

 them, turn them right side up, then 

 those storage cells will be cut down 

 and turned into brood cells ; they will 

 become the cradles of thousands of 

 workers instead of loitering places 

 for idlers. They will then become 

 a source of live profit instead of 

 remaining dead capital. 



After the enterprising apiarist has 

 manipulated "reversible frames" for 

 a season until he begins to see clear- 

 ly that he approves them, that they 

 are practical, that he can achieve 

 results with them that he cannot 

 without them, he naturally concludes 



